07 Oct Spooky Halloween Waste Facts and 8 Eco Ways to Celebrate
Many of us look forward to Halloween every year. Children and adults alike, love to dress up, host gatherings, and indulge in candies & treats. Halloween is also a day that generates a lot of garbage. So how can we minimize our waste during the festivities? Here are a few tips from the Island Return It depot.
- Instead of serving plastic drink cups, switch to reusable or compostable, or ask guests to bring their own cups and tableware. If you do use plastic cups, have everyone put them in a special bin, so you can rinse and recycle later.
- Have fun making your own Halloween decorations and props. So many tutorials are available on Pinterest and Youtube to show you how, and everyone will enjoy the anticipation while preparing ahead. Reuse every year as part of your Halloween tradition. Donate items you are done with.
- Consider making a costume from thrifted or scrap fabrics, rather than buying a plastic or polyester costumes. Swap, repurpose or donate your costumes rather than throwing them away.
- Carving jack-o-lanterns is one of the most popular halloween traditions. Candles are a great way to illuminate them, but if you choose to use disposable electronic lights, be sure to recycling them at the end of their life at our Duncan or Cobble Hill depots. Don’t forget to compost your pumpkin (or better yet, make a pie).
- What about plastic candy packaging? Soft plastics can now be recycled, including candy wrappers, chip bags and granola bar wrappers. Please make sure these are clean enough to avoid contaminating your batch.
- Don’t forget all the aluminum, plastic and glass “ready to drink” beverage containers that can be returned for your deposit. We’ve got you covered at any of our 4 depots.
- Consider giving candies and treats in recyclable or biodegradable packaging (think Smarties in cardboard & brands like YumEarth and Alter Eco).
- Share your earth friendly Halloween ideas with your community to inspire and show them how it is done. Have fun with it.
Making the choice to recycling, helps us reduce what ends up in our landfills, while conserving valuable resources that go into making so many of our products and packagings. With a bit of advance planning, and by putting out a few clearly labelled recycling bins, everyone can help out and the task will be much easier. Check here for a full and comprehensive list of everything we take at our depots.
From all of us at Island Return It, have a spooktacular holiday.
Spooky facts About Halloween Waste (Us Stats):
- 35 million costumes end up in landfills annually
- 83% of Halloween costumes are non-recyclable plastic or polyester
- A halloween costume can take up to 200 years to decompose
- 60% of pumpkins end up in the landfill every year (the equivalent of 360 million pieces of pie)
- Decomposing pumpkin gas is 20 times more harmful than CO2
Here’s a few of our favourite home made halloween crafts and goodies. Enjoy.